Special Issue on Wireless Technologies in Biomedicine
By Nitish Thakor
The recent IEEE Topical Conference on Biomedical Wireless Technologies, Networks & Sensing Systems, held January 20-23 in Austin, Texas, USA, brought together experts in this growing area. This issue of the Life Sciences Newsletter, we bring you a video clip of an interview with Dr. J. -C. Chiao, of the University of Texas – Arlington. Dr. Chiao chaired one of the Conference sessions, and conducts an active program of research in this area. Also, we present five original articles by prominent researchers, including Dr. Chiao, on their work in applications of wireless technologies to biomedical problems.
In our featured video, J. -C. Chiao gives us his perspective on the coming big breakthroughs in the biomedical applications of wireless technologies.
In his accompanying article, Wireless implants for personalized medicine and chronic monitoring, J. -C. Chiao presents several research projects in his own laboratories that can lead to cost-effective implanted monitoring and management of patients.
The monitoring of changes in intracranial pressure (ICP) is of great significance in studies of the effects of traumatic brain injury and hydrocephalus. Xu Meng, D. Kacy Cullen, Mohammad-Reza Tofighi, and Arye Rosen describe a small fully embedded wireless ICP sensor they have developed, in Telemetry-Based Neuromonitoring System Measuring Dynamic Intracranial Pressure Following Closed-Head Rotational Brain Injury in Swine.
Walker Turner and Rizwan Bashirullah combine capacitors and CMOS transistors to create an implantable wirelessly tunable capacitance in Rethinking Capacitors for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).
In Smart Radar Sensor for Accurate Tumor Tracking in Motion Adaptive Cancer Radiotherapy, Changzhi Li tells us of a smart radar sensor which can non-invasively track the tumor location during radiation therapy.
For a variety of applications, including monitoring of ambulatory patients in their homes or hospital settings, it is necessary to locate precisely where people are located within physical spaces. Ehsan Yavari, Victor M. Lubecke, and Olga Boric-Lubecke report in True Human Presence Detection with Radar Technology on a low cost low power Doppler radar occupancy sensor for this purpose.
Nitish V. Thakor is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, as well as the Director of the newly formed institute for neurotechnology, SiNAPSE, at the National University of Singapore. 
J. C. Chiao is a Greene endowed professor and Garrett endowed professor of Electrical Engineering at University of Texas - Arlington... 
Xu Meng (S'08) received a B.E. degree in electronics and telecomm. in 2006 and a M.S. degree in biomedical engineering in 2008 from the Beijing Institute of Technology... 
D. Kacy Cullen has B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering, in 2002, and a Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA... 
Mohammad-Reza Tofighi received his B.S.E.E. degree from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 1989, and his M.S.E.E. from Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran in 1993. 
Arye Rosen received a Masters degree in engineering from Johns Hopkins University, a M.Sc. degree in physiology from Jefferson Medical College, and a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Drexel University... 
Walker Turner received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida in 2009 and 2012, respectively. 
Dr. Rizwan Bashirullah received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University. 
Changzhi Li received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida in 2009. 
Ehsan Yavari received a B.S.E.E. degree from the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran, and a M.Sc. degree in electronics from Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. 
Victor M. Lubecke received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and a B.S.E.E. degree from the California State Polytechnic Institute, Pomona. 
Olga Boric-Lubecke received a M.S. degree from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles, all in electrical engineering.